


Elysium

by chibimono



Series: Astragali [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Centaurs, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibimono/pseuds/chibimono
Summary: The gracious God Pluto chose Gabriel to stand as his champion in the fight against the titan omnics.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes & Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: Astragali [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017955
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Elysium

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the Flesh & Bone R76 fanzine! I was so grateful to be accepted into this wonderful zine full of cryptids and myth. Being my first zine ever, I can't tell you how in awe I am of all the talent showcased in those pages and how humbled I am that I could join them. I'd like to thank the mod team for all the time and patience and skill they put into pulling this zine together. It's a work of love and beauty that I will cherish forever. And finally, a deep and heartfelt thanks to my dear friend Airafleeza for editing this and for allowing me to find my passion again in classical mythology.

Gabriel awoke in a sea of souls as far as the eye could see. Before him stood Pluto, the Lord Dīs Pater and god of the underworld himself.

“If I could promise coin-free passage into Elysium for your family and their descendants for all eternity,” the god spoke, his sonorous and low voice echoing in the hallowed halls of the earth, “would you fight for me?”

The soldier looked to where his wife and child lay lifeless in the darkness of the underworld. He remembered the life they had, the life he tried to give them but could not.

But he could give them Elysium, heaven forevermore.

“I will fight,” Gabriel said. He became a soldier once again.

*****

Five champions were named by their gods and sent to the Temple Iovis. The Oracle Adawe was tasked to prepare them with supplies and the details of their missions.

Gabriel watched from the shadows of the temple hall as they arrived one by one to join him. The pride of wise Minerva, Ana was an owl-turned-woman who could change between both shapes as she pleased. Vulcan lent his greatest disciple, the diminutive fireborn Torbjörn, to lend his metal craft and ingenuity. Reinhardt was a warrior of legend, reborn at the hand of Mars from his bronze memorial.

When a man arrived on a horse, Torbjörn was quick to leave, thinking their transportation had come. He gathered his packs and made to load them on the horse but stopped short as the beast stamped, a puddle forming in the depression made by his hoof in the temple’s stone floor.

“I’m no mule or cart horse,” the newcomer said. A closer look revealed he wasn’t on a horse at all but half-man, half-horse. “I am Jack, sent by Neptune himself.”

An owl, a small lava man, a metal warrior, a centaur, and Gabriel, a shade from the Underworld. What a motley crew they made.

*****

Breaking free of the forest canopy, they came upon miles of rolling meadows without cover. They discussed their approach and agreed it would be better to move at night.

Each tended to their duties as they made camp—save for Jack. The centaur wandered off into the grasses and wildflowers skirting the forest edge, golden tail flicking feistily against his tawny hide. He followed a few bees at a sedate pace, then chased after a butterfly and a flock of startled birds taking flight. He reared and tossed his tail, galloping about and kicking up the field.

“What is the fool doing?” Torbjörn huffed.

Ana laughed behind her hand as Jack flopped over into the grass and rolled, his hooves kicking at the air. “I think he’s playing,” she smiled.

As he danced like a nymph in the throes of passion, Gabriel thought he was beautiful. 

Jack played for some time, his flanks lathered with sweat when he flopped into the tall grass and didn’t rise for some time. As evening set in, Gabriel followed the forest’s shadows into the field where Jack was dozing in a wildflower nest. Buds and blades of grass littered his mussed blond hair like a dryad’s crown.

“Meadows are beautiful, aren’t they?” the sleepy centaur asked, nuzzling the petals of a blossom brushing his nose. 

Only war waged and blood spilled on gentle rolling hills like these for Gabriel. He never had smiling blue eyes, whole and hale, looking up at him from a bed of wildflowers.

“Yes,” Gabriel said, “they’re beautiful.”

*****

An owl flew overhead, skimming close to Gabriel and Jack as they pushed through the underbrush. “They’ve come up behind!” Ana called down to them. “They’ll pin us!”

The ground rumbled, distant with the heavy step of the titan omnics. Their long stride would bring them up fast and leave them without much time for an escape. Gabriel waved her on. “Get Reinhardt and Torbjörn! Fall back!”

She flew off and Gabriel cursed her freedom of movement. As it was, Gabriel could fade into the shade safely, but his travels would be slowed as he clung to the shadows. 

Then there was Jack. 

The centaur stomped his hoof anxiously. “Gabriel?” 

“Go!” Gabriel commanded, hoping Jack had enough of a head start. They could hear the crashing of trees now, the omnics not far off. Woodland animals tore past them, fleeing in fright.

“Gabriel!” Jack shouted, his name a curse in the centaur’s rough voice. 

Gabriel turned to insist Jack go while he still could, but he was hauled up bodily and flung like a sack of grain over a muscled backside. He was barely given warning before Jack was off with a gallop. Scrabbling for a hold on Jack’s tawny hide, Gabriel finally pulled himself astride him, riding bareback but with no reins or mane to hold. While his thighs were strong, they could only do so much during Jack’s powerful leaps and agile dodges, and he soon plastered himself against Jack’s human back, arms wrapped around his well-formed chest. One of Jack’s hands gripped tightly at Gabriel’s forearm as if he could keep Gabriel safe that much more.

While Jack was fast, the omnics were faster. Jack barely faltered as the ground shook more and more under him, keeping his hooves under him as the land all but rolled with each step the monstrously large omnics made. The _snap!_ of timber had Gabriel looking back as they shoved trees aside, pushing their way through the forest. Jack had veered well away from their intended target of an Omnic encampment and toward the river they had seen on the map, but the omnics still pursued two of the champions that plagued them.

Though they searched for a river in their desperation, what they found was a canyon formed by the water rushing far below. There was no way for the omnics to follow them across the canyon at their size, but Gabriel and Jack needed a plan for themselves. There was no bridge ahead, yet Jack did not stop his headlong charge.

“Jack, don’t!” Gabriel commanded, tightening his arms around Jack as if it could stop him.

“We can make it!” he said, breathless with galloping.

Gabriel could see them being smashed upon the rocks below, maybe even drowning if they were whisked away by the river’s current.

“Trust in me!” the centaur insisted.

Gabriel had to. He was to either face the omnics or go on a leap of faith. Even if he wasn’t riding upon Jack’s back, he would still trust Jack to somehow see them through this, so the leap it was.

He felt the power of Jack's muscles working between his thighs as he put on a burst of speed before vaulting into the open air. Gabriel held his breath and cursed Neptune for giving a nereid legs at all, let alone four. They sailed over the gap and the rushing river below. 

For a moment they thought they would make it.

Once they began arcing down, the fear of falling short became very real. Jack’s front hooves landed upon the ledge, but it wasn’t enough. His human arms scrabbled to get a handhold, clawing at the dirt to keep his backend from pulling them down. 

Jack's body casted just enough shadow upon the edge for Gabriel to slink along in his vaporous form. On land and solid again, he grabbed Jack and pulled with all he had. Back hooves slipping against loose rock, Jack tried his best to help, and eventually they landed safely in a sprawled heap, panting.

The omnics roared from the other side, their quarry lost to them.

“You’re a menace!” Gabriel accused, a giddy laugh bubbling up with a bit of hysteria.

Jack’s smile was wild and reckless and absolutely beautiful. “Yes, but you still keep me around.”

Lord Dīs, Gabriel prayed that wouldn’t change anytime soon.

*****

The trek back to safety was a long one, too long after weeks on the attack, and Jack finally collapsed in the mud when his injuries from their last battle were too great to go further.

“Go,” he begged.

“Jack, my friend, I’ll carry you,” Reinhardt said, leaning down to heft his considerable weight.

“No, please. I won’t slow you any longer.”

Ana looked as if she would insist, but Gabriel held out his hand, shaking his head.

“I’ll stay with him. We’ll meet again at Temple Iovis.”

Torbjörn huffed, weary and defeated. “At least get him out of the road, for Vulcan’s sake.”

Reinhardt bore the centaur’s weight to get him under some trees with Torbjörn quickly constructing a bit of cover from the rain with branches and Reinhardt’s leather cloak. Ana left them the last of her rations and the dwarf spared a few embers to keep them warm. Gabriel settled in with Jack as their team continued on, letting the centaur rest his head on Gabriel’s thigh. 

“You should go,” Jack rasped.

Gabriel shook his head. “No man left behind.”

“I’m no man.”

“You’re half-man,” said Gabriel, “and that’s enough.” 

Jack sighed. “I’m a nereid. I come from the foam on ocean waves, the same as where I’ll return.”

“Then no nymphs left behind, either.”

Jack was quiet until he whispered, “I don’t want to go back.” It sounded as if a deep, yawning ache was stealing his breath. “I promised I’d fight for a chance to see land. I never knew I’d find reasons to stay.” He swallowed hard as he shut his eyes, his voice tight and choked. “And if we fail? Would I even have an ocean to go back to?”

“We won’t fail,” Gabriel insisted. They couldn’t. The world as the gods made it rested on them to see this through victorious. “We’ll make it. There will be holidays for us. Maybe even festivals.”

“I want to see a festival,” Jack mused softly.

Gabriel ran his fingers through Jack’s hair, hoping to soothe his pain. “Live. Stay. We’ll go to one.”

“I want to stay.” Jack’s lashes were wet, but Gabriel couldn’t tell if they were tears or just leftover from the rain they’d escaped.

“What would you stay for?”

Jack breathed for a while before he spoke. “Meadows. Butterflies. The friends I’ve made. You.”

Gabriel thought of his wife and child in paradise and of his own place in the world. He was still a soldier, not yet a hero deserving of heaven. Besides, there was no ocean in Elysium, no meadows with blue-eyed centaurs rolling in wildflowers. He needed to be here, if only for a little longer.

*****

When Pluto came for him, he opened the earth itself. Gabriel looked down into the dark, sulfurous depths. “What of the others?”

“They will be returned to their God, just as you are.”

He wanted to stay. “As long as there’s innocence to protect, can I still fight?”

Pluto, the generous Lord Dīs, looked Gabriel over. “Is that what you want?”

Gabriel wanted to stay with Jack. Jack didn’t turn away from him for the blood on his hands and his nightmares of war. His blue eyes always looked to Gabriel in trust and wonder, never in regret and disappointment. “Fighting is all I know.”

*****

“Jack, stop staring into the shadows or you’ll get left behind,” Ana called from the temple entrance. 

“The festival’s in the countryside!” Torbjorn stomped his feet. “It will take days to get there!”

Gabriel could see Jack peering into the darkened corners of the temple around the columns. His stormy blue eyes cleared like a sunny day when they caught sight of Gabriel slipping out from the shadows. Jack greeted him by leaning down to press his forehead against Gabriel’s and then nuzzled at his hair. The simple touch was heaven enough for Gabriel.

“A festival?” Gabriel asked, running a gentle hand over Jack’s flank as Jack led him out to the others.

“He wouldn’t let us leave without you,” Ana smiled, nodding her hello.

“There’s raiders on the roads toward the countryside,” Gabriel said. “I’ve seen the poor souls of merchants they’ve killed.”

“All the more reason for our travels, my friends!” Reinhardt laughed eagerly. “Let us go!”


End file.
